


Standing Water

by orphan_account



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-07-25
Updated: 2013-08-15
Packaged: 2017-12-21 07:25:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/897517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post-season 1 with spoilers through the finale. The memory of Abigail Hobbs haunts the dreams of those who took responsibility of her in the last months of her life. Her continuing presence after death will be as much of a catalyst in their lives as her original introduction.</p><p>"He who has gone, so we but cherish his memory, abides with us, more potent, nay, more present than the living man."<br/>- Antoine de Saint-Exupery</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Styx I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hannibal dreams of Abigail.

Dr. Hannibal Lecter sat at his desk in his office. The room stretched out in all directions around him, and he was perfectly alone. There was a subtle musicality in the silence. Lecter noticed absently that the room no longer had a door. Then he noticed her.

Abigail Hobbs was kneeling in the library, staring down at him, her large eyes like pools of water covered by a thin layer of ice. The scar on the side of her pale neck was bleeding steadily, as was the area of her head where a second ear used to be attached. She was clothed in a white frock that Lecter did not recall having seen her wear before. Her dark hair was pulled away from her face in a neat braid.

“Abigail, you’ve been climbing walls again,” he said.

She did not answer, but averted her gaze to the floor as though ashamed. He wondered if she had bled on any of his books.

“Won’t you please come down from there.” 

Abigail was standing in front of him in the center of the office. 

“Thank you,” Lecter said. Drawn to the vivid wound, he stroked the bleeding area on the side of her face with one finger. The scarlet hue of the liquid residue on the appendage when he withdrew it was truly exceptional.

Her mouth quivered and water gathered in her eyes, but no tears fell and she did not sob or make any other sound. He realized she was not breathing and her skin was even paler than usual, nearly the shade of her dress. Lecter had the feeling that under a harsher light he could see through her skin. There was a good chance the girl was a matchless medical phenomenon, one that experts and laymen alike would talk about for years to come.

“You’re very special, Abigail,” Lecter told her. “I believe you have a unique condition…”

His mouth continued to form words, but he could not hear what they were and realized he did not know what he was saying. Abigail’s unshed tears had dried. As his lips continued to move, her shallow blue gaze continued to hold the attention of his strange maroon eyes. The attentiveness Lecter had come to expect from her was gone, and with it all traces of her abundant, though unsophisticated, cunning. 

Slowly, Abigail Hobbs reached into her chest and pulled out her beating heart. She held it carefully in both hands and offered it forth to Hannibal Lecter. “I don’t think I’ve ever felt as safe as I do when I’m with you,” she told him.

He took it from her with his right hand and held it up for inspection. Despite what the apparent condition of her body suggested, the heart was in fine working order. It didn't even drip on the carpet. “Thank you,” he said, and woke up.


	2. Acheron I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Will dreams of Abigail.

The full moon was reflected perfectly on the still, dark lake. The surrounding trees, evergreen, cast eerie shadows around Will Graham as he approached the water. He had never been in such a silent forest before.

The black doe stood in the shallows of the lake, gazing at him. Will stopped at the water’s edge and stared back. The doe slowly walked up and leaned its head forward, as if to nuzzle his arm. Will cautiously reached forward and stroked the animal’s nose with one finger. It bolted into the forest.

“Wait! Stop!” Will shouted as he ran after the doe. The trees seemed to part to let him through. But where was the deer? He stopped running and tried to watch his breath.

“Will,” said a voice behind him.

Will spun around. The doe was sprawled on the ground, looking up at him helplessly. Abigail was sprawled on the ground helplessly, eyes wide, wearing a crown of black antlers. She was wearing the green sweater Will had seen once in a store and thought of buying for her.

“Abigail! Are you alright? What’s wrong?” Will asked urgently.

He stepped back from the wall, satisfied with his work. Abigail Hobbs mounted on black antlers, velvet pressed into the gash in her throat. She looked beautiful, and she would always look like this. No one would find her in the woods and she would stay eighteen years old and looking for someone to take care of her. 

Abigail lifted her head and opened her blue eyes. “It wasn’t you,” she said.

“I know.”

“Do you wish it was? Is that why you dream about killing me so much?” Abigail asked. “Do you wish you were locked up for a crime you committed, instead of one you didn’t?”

Will nodded. “It would make things a lot less complicated.”

Abigail sighed. “Maybe it was for the best that I didn’t survive. I trusted Hannibal more than you. He could have kept twisting me until I was just how he wanted.”

“What was it he wanted?” Will asked.

The girl shrugged, mostly through arm gestures since her shoulders were pierced by antlers. “You’re the one who can see him now.”

The wendigo advanced on him, looming and pitch black, as Will scrambled to escape the forest. The trees now seemed to squeeze closer together when they saw him coming. Where was his car? Where was the road? 

Will was struck by the sudden knowledge that there were no other people in the world. No one was going to help him. He didn’t have a car. There were no roads or streetlights. It was just Will and the wendigo, the cannibal demon with Dr. Lecter’s face. 

The cots at the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane did not absorb sweat as well as Will’s sheets and towels at home. He lay awake in the dark cell, panting. He tried to ignore the sounds of the other inmates that were having nightmares of their own.


End file.
